You guys remember when I said that Dempsey's confused? I think it's actually that he doesn't realize what qualifies as CL club. I'm still gonna cheer for him but like with Friedel, it's gonna make me sick to my stomach.

Gatehawk wrote:You guys remember when I said that Dempsey's confused? I think it's actually that he doesn't realize what qualifies as CL club. I'm still gonna cheer for him but like with Friedel, it's gonna make me sick to my stomach.

Shut up, Gatehawk.

Anyway, Spurs just got A LOT better today, same with City. Well.....wait. SSN just said Moutinho will probably stay at Porto. Still, spurs are looking decent with the addition of Dempsey. The battle for 4th place will be a good one, with Spurs, Arse, Newcastle and possibly Liverpool all vying for points.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

For starters, transfer deadline day is a frigging nightmare. Aside from the fact it's pointless, it also means an entire day on the phone asking about the latest bull shit rumour on Twitter. I wish transfers were banned.

Liverpool - Without doubt Brendan Rodgers is paying the price for the absolute shitload of money wasted by Daglish and co.

Spurs - Not convinced. Lloris is all right. Dempsey... meh. He's OK. I'm used to being more impressed with Spurs with their signings. Think they've taken a step back since Harry's bizarre departure.

Man City - Why? Why are you signing players for the sake of it?

Everton - class. A club that knows exactly what it's doing and does it well. No delusions.

Agree about Everton. Man City are looking for top-drawer cover for their top-drawer starters. Plus, they buy players for the sake of it because they can.

I couldn't agree more about Rodgers, but I think he'll make the most of it. He's made some good signings this summer, and cut loose pretty much all of the dead weight. They'll need another striker come January for sure, but I like where we are for now.

Arsenal really missed the boat. They should have gone hard for Falcao, Llorente, even Sturridge. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

I just wanna forget about the transfer window and focus on the games. Arsenal started fast and then just flat out stopped when they shouldn't have in transfers, so basically, in both my mind and a lot of Arsenal fans minds, the board just sold RvP and Song to line their pockets.

I thought the Dembele move by Spurs was the class of the last day... for anyone not named City.

With Liverpool, the news out is that Ayre overplayed his hand with Dempsey. Thought himself to cute and probably did not take to seriously the earlier tapping up allegations.

Either way, with the initial disappointment gone, Liverpool has added Borini, Assaidi, Yezil, Allen and Sahin. Not enough, but decent quality in that. They needed to have a bigger day, but in the end we have to remember that this is transition.... anyways heard Drogba's available...

I can't help but feel that this win was somewhat satisfying. I will admit I was worried cause I'm not convinced Vito Mannone is that good. I think this match really showed just how much improved Arsenal's defense is, I know I said that already but Liverpool is a whole other level compared to Stoke and Sunderland. The Reds were missing it's lethalness but they were finding chances and Arsenal gave up very little room and cut off a lot of movement.

Agreed. I'm struggling to see where any goals are going to come from with Liverpool. Defending has been a load of arse so far this season, build-up play is too slow, Suarez and Borini both look poor, Gerrard not providing much. Allen is fantastic, but doesn't offer much in attack. Sterling looks great but has no-one to service. Very poor.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

Swansea was the perfect club for him because for several years they'd built a structure based around passing & controlled possession under two different managers. When he arrived, it was very easy to implement his system because it was virtually already in place. He really just took it to the next level, won promotion and the rest is history. However - he's taken two jobs (Reading & Liverpool) where the system wasn't in place and needed time... years even... to change the culture and programme things into his vision. He didn't last very long at Reading because they weren't willing to be that patient. I'm concerned for his sake that Liverpool likewise won't be that patient. Today they looked like a team trying to do things his way but struggling because it's not second nature like it is at Swansea. If you appoint a manager like Brendan Rodgers you have to be prepared to give him 2-3 years to get it right, and even then you might only seen the early signs of promise.

He's just led Liverpool to their worst league start for 50 years. Will he get the time he needs? Big question mark there. And if he doesn't, the Liverpool fans should turn on the hopeless chuffs running their club. Appointing Daglish, letting him waste millions, appointing a long term manager and then giving him nothing to spend... they have to stick by Rodgers and let him build. Otherwise there was no point appointing him. I just wonder if they're willing to finish 10-15th to let that happen.

Agreed about the players looking like they were trying to stick to the 'system' and failing at it. The team just doesn't look comfortable, they're spending too much focus trying to keep the shape and stick to the system. Every time Liverpool pressed forward, Arsenal got back in numbers and put 8 or 9 men in or around the box, snuffing out Liverpool's labored attacks. When Arsenal broke forward, they did it with pace, and Liverpool's back 4 were left on their own to deal, because the midfield and the front 3 were just standing around holding the shape. This was more evident in the second half, which leads me to believe that they were doing this under Rodgers' instruction.

I'd be willing to give Rodgers two mediocre seasons, but would be looking to seriously challenge the top 4 in season 3. FSG really screwed up last season, but if they can use this season and next to build on what Rodgers wants to instill, recoup some of their losses from last season, then go hard after some big names next offseason, we might have a chance. You can see what Rodgers wants to do, and you can see that players like Allen, Sterling and possible Sahin are capable of doing it, but I'm not so sure about Suarez, Gerrard, and the centerbacks. Something has to be done about the shocking defending.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

theENGLISHseahawk wrote:For starters, transfer deadline day is a frigging nightmare. Aside from the fact it's pointless, it also means an entire day on the phone asking about the latest bull shit rumour on Twitter. I wish transfers were banned.

Liverpool - Without doubt Brendan Rodgers is paying the price for the absolute shitload of money wasted by Daglish and co.

Spurs - Not convinced. Lloris is all right. Dempsey... meh. He's OK. I'm used to being more impressed with Spurs with their signings. Think they've taken a step back since Harry's bizarre departure.

Man City - Why? Why are you signing players for the sake of it?

Everton - class. A club that knows exactly what it's doing and does it well. No delusions.

Arsenal - Not done enough.

Sheff Wed - Jay Bothroyd and Martin Taylor in the bag. Going places.

I agree about the transfer window being a nightmare. I don't think a window of any kind is needed. Buy or sell as you please but players are still cup tied as they are now. Twitter has made everything even more of a nightmare. even just as a fan. Despite knowing that a rumour involving your club is 95% likely to be bollocks I still feel disappointed when you hear that it's not going to happen.

As for this window - agree about Liverpool & Arsenal.

Everton - I'll take your word for it. I know nothing about Naismith or Oviedo. Pienaar's alright. Spurs should have kept him but 'Arry ballsed that up for us, sending him back to Everton on loan right when we needed him.

City - Maicon was awful in the 2 games I saw him in against Spurs. Mancini obviously knows him but I wouldn't have thought he'd improve their team much. Don't know the other players bought.

Spurs - I thought we came out alright. Modric was never sticking around, regardless of who was managing the club, so our top priority had to be finding a replacement. I think Dembele brings a different skillset, but a comprehensive skill set nonetheless, and should be able to do a decent job. We really could have done with signing Moutinho as well though. I'm very happy about Lloris. He's a good keeper and more comfortable playing the ball with his feet than Friedel, which is something AVB's keepers need to be able to do. Friedel was never going to be a long term option and I don't think we could have done any better. The price was decent too. I wouldn't mind betting that Jack Butland would have cost a significant amount more than Lloris, De Gea was twice the price. Vertonghen should turn out to be a good buy. Sigurdsson looks a good player and Dempsey is a steal at £6m. He doesn't have van der Vaart's class but he can play for 90 minutes and score goals. Under Armour will be happy too. Not that that matters. Adebayor's good, although Llorente or Leandro would make me feel more confident.

Out of curiosity, which are the Spurs transfers in the past that you were more impressed by? van der Vaart is the obvious one. The Modric signing was pretty much universally slated by the English press as he was too small to play in the premier league. The signing of Walker (and Naughton) was obviously astute. Sandro's class. Who else? Nelsen, Saha, Gomes, Bent, Bentley, Friedel, dos Santos, Pavlyuchenko, Corluka, Pienaar, Cudicini, Kaboul, Krancjar, Assou-Ekotto, Bostock.... some have had more success than others, but I don't think Spurs are a club renowned for exceptional transfer nouse. I don't think we had a bad haul. We've got some depth now, certainly with the centre backs and midfielders anyway.

I didn't expect the team to get off to a great start, which is proving to be the case, but I think we'll be okay in the medium, long term. What became obvious in this window is that the owners are not prepared to spend money for the sake of it; the balance sheet ended up £11m in profit on Friday night. I think we've suffered in the transfer market by not qualifying for the Champions League. We should have done but we didn't. It is what it is. COYS!

I've also just read that Levy was out Levy'd by Porto, ie raised the price after initially agreeing the fee (by £4m, which Levy then accepted, only to have Porto mess up the paperwork to the FA, hence Spurs seeking an extension. No idea if it's true, but it's from one of the few Spurs sources that tends to be pretty much on the money and not in the habit of making things up for the sake of it.

Gatehawk wrote:Turns out the reason for Ronaldo being unhappy is because his father died on September 2nd, 2005.

Ronaldo is unhappy because he has to play Barcelona 8 times a year and messi, xavi and iniesta repeatedly win awards over him.

That and he is a red devil at heart. He will return for fergies last season.

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2

There is no need to be a dumbass and think that everytime a player is upset it's purely soccer reasons that's the cause. Look it up and you'll see that this past Sunday was the anniversary of his father's death, you'd be pretty emotional too if you were playing a game on the anniversary of the death of someone you care about.

Gatehawk wrote:Turns out the reason for Ronaldo being unhappy is because his father died on September 2nd, 2005.

Ronaldo is unhappy because he has to play Barcelona 8 times a year and messi, xavi and iniesta repeatedly win awards over him.

That and he is a red devil at heart. He will return for fergies last season.

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2

There is no need to be a dumbass and think that everytime a player is upset it's purely soccer reasons that's the cause. Look it up and you'll see that this past Sunday was the anniversary of his father's death, you'd be pretty emotional too if you were playing a game on the anniversary of the death of someone you care about.

Don't be a dumb ass and think that his unhappiness is an isolated one time incident. 6 months after he got to Madrid he was linked to a return to Old Trafford.

While we're on the subject of the international break I might add my 2 cents worth. The South American qualification process is awesome. Every game is huge. These last 2 games that England have played have meant jack all. They were always going to thump Moldova and I'm sure that both England and Ukraine will be content with a draw as they'll both qualify from the group anyway. England now has games against San Marino, Poland, and Montenegro to come. The Poland game could mean something, but the others are pretty much exercises in not playing down to a lesser nation. I would be much more enthusiatic about international breaks if the games were more appealing. I like to theorise about possible improvements to sporting competitions, and the European World Cup Qualification is ripe for improvement.

There are currently13 teams that make it through to the World Cup, beginning with 53 teams in 9 groups. I think it would be far better if, similar to the FA Cup the top, say, 12 teams get a free pass for the first round while the other 41 play in 8 groups of 5 or 6 with the top 2 from each group meeting the top-ranked sides in 7 groups of 4 until the final 13 emerge.

That way there could still be international breaks but they could be spent playing games against Holland, Germany, France etc which would surely make for more competitive, match hardened, European sides at the World Cup itself. It'd probably make matches more meaningful for the likes of Moldova too.

Despite being a keen England supporter, I had absolutely no inclination to watch the 2 friendlies during the week. My main interest in these first round games games is hoping that a)Spurs players don't get injured and b) Roy Hodgson gets the sack..

I honestly think they could do without the International Break being 3 weeks into the season. Players always seem to get hurt during this break, mainly if they play for Arsenal. I got a bit freaked when I heard about Diaby's knock, but now it's looking like a really minor. Then there's players like RvP, who the team they play for really needs them to stay healthy. We're taking Van Gaal at his word about him, but this is the Van Persie everyone was expecting to show up all of last season, and now it's Man U's turn to bite their nails to the nub hoping he stays healthy, if he is healthy, at least until Rooney's fit again.

I've already lost interest, Simon. I don't know what it's going to take to make Liverpool significant again, but passing along the back 4 with 30 seconds left in a 1-1 game is not acceptable to me. United will beat us next week, and we'll be struggling to pull ourselves up into the mid table. Hopefully Rodgers can beginning turning things around next season. Suarez looked like the unhappiest man to ever score a goal.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

It's quite a good comparison actually. But for that equaliser today, Liverpool would've been in the bottom three. Even after four games, that is pretty shocking. And Liverpool won't be down there in 10-15 games time, but it's going to be a real test of the owners resolve if results keep up like this. How invested are they in the Rodgers project? You know - the Liverpool fans didn't much like the last lot of American owners. This lot running the club now are getting away with murder. What a terrible job so far - and if there's anyone who'll take Liverpool to new depths, it'll be these guys.

As for Arsenal - they might not have any trophies, they may only have six against Southampton, but never doubt Wenger knows what he's doing.

And the best bit of my day? Having the freedom to hammer QPR/Chelsea/Premier League/football on my radio show over that farce of a handshake drama today. What the hell? They even had commentators on national radio disecting who was shaking hands with who, who wasn't, which player patted John Terry on the back. FFS - grow up. Embarassing. Thank god for Chance Warmack restoring my faith in sport.